Kung in-love ka sa mga panahong ito, sige basa! Kung feeling mo naman mala-hopeless romantic ang peg mo, aba ituloy mo ang pagbabasa! 🙂
Let’s define L-O-V-E. According to my friend na si wikipedia, it refers to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes that ranges from interpersonal affection. It can refer to an emotion of a strong attraction and personal attachment. Andaming ibig sabihin ng love, pag-ibig, amour, liefde o ai! O Di ba! Sabi nga sa kanta ni John Mayer, “Love is a Verb”. But LOVE is not only a verb. Dito tayo mag-focus ngayon mga ate at kuya.
To understand love correctly, we must see that love originates as a noun that necessarily produces verbs.
Let’s turn to the “Apostle of Love” for help with this:
- “God is love.” (1 John 4:8)
- “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)
- “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” (1 John 3:16)
Demands My Soul, My Life, My All
Anything that looks like love that we do for others — being patient, kind, not boastful or irritable or resentful, giving away our possessions, even martyrdom (1 Corinthians 13:4-5, 3) — that isn’t done for God’s glory and with a desire that others may taste and see that God is good (Psalm 34:8) is not true, vibrant love. Godless love is a hollow shell, a love that has lost its soul, a flower cut from its root. Godless love is sin (Romans 14:23).
It makes you catch your breath, doesn’t it? How often is your “love” sin? O how wonderful is the precious gospel! Jesus fulfilled the greatest commandments for us sinful lovers! There is therefore now no condemnation for us if we are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).
But, if you’re like me and see the frequent hollow sinfulness of your love in light of biblical love, you’ll realize that this whole “pursuing love” thing is a much deeper issue than we first thought.
And the remedy is far more than us trying to do more verbs — to produce more actions. We need a deeper transformation, a profound reordering of our souls’ affections. And this only happens by looking at the glory of the great Noun until we delight in him more than anything else.
So that’s where pursuing love begins: look at the Noun — gaze at God in his love. Dive into the greatest commandment before getting consumed in the second. In the long run, because of the actions it will produce, this is the most loving thing we can do this year.
Your sweetest Melody, ❤
